A bipartisan House bill would add farm and ranch work to the list of jobs eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. H.R. 9974, the Young Farmer Success Act, was introduced by Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) alongside Reps. Joe Courtney (D-CT), Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), and Nikki Budzinski (D-IL), and referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce.
The text of the bill amends Section 455(m)(3)(B) of the Higher Education Act to treat full-time work as an “employee or manager of a qualified farm or ranch” as a public service job. A qualified operation is one with at least $35,000 in gross revenue from agricultural product sales in 2026, indexed to inflation in later years. Borrowers would still need 120 qualifying payments, the same rule that applies to every other job category on the PSLF list.
Why It Matters
PSLF eligibility depends on who the employer is, not what you went to school for. Government agencies and 501(c)(3) nonprofits qualify. However, farm and ranch work does not.
The bill’s sponsors have framed the potential for student loan forgiveness as a recruiting tool, though the bill carries no cost estimate and no projection of how many of the borrowers chasing forgiveness would become newly eligible.
The demographic case behind that idea is real. The average age of a U.S. farm producer reached 58.1 in 2022, according to the USDA Census of Agriculture, and the country lost 142,000 farms over the prior five years. Encouraging more young adults to go into farming and ranching could be important for domestic farm production.
The Details
- To qualify, a person must be an “Employee or manager”. Self-employed borrowers and independent contractors have never qualified for PSLF, and the bill does not say whether an owner-operator running their own farm counts as a manager. This is a gap the Education Department would have to resolve in rulemaking.
- The $35,000 revenue floor screens out the smallest operations. Roughly 74% of U.S. farms sold under $50,000 in 2022 and together generated 2% of national farm sales, per the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s census analysis.
- Payment mechanics stay untouched. Qualifying payments would still have to come from an income-driven plan such as the new Repayment Assistance Plan or IBR.
- Prior versions stalled. The 2023 edition, H.R. 2728, drew 19 cosponsors and never received a committee vote.
How This Connects
PSLF has existed since 2007, and roughly 120,000 borrowers are becoming eligible to have their loans forgiven each year. Even with all the student loan changes that happened in the OBBBA, but the rules for PSLF haven’t changed.
The Education Department’s employer eligibility rule is attempting to narrow which organizations count, but two federal court cases are challenging it. Expanding the definition of public service in statute would run against what the administration appears to be doing, which is likely part of the reason why this bill has never moved out of committee.
What’s Next
The bill needs to make it out of committee. The cosponsor count is the near-term signal, but it’s still well short of what it needs to be considered.
The other path is attachment to a larger vehicle, either a farm bill or a Higher Education Act reauthorization. Borrowers already working toward forgiveness should keep certifying employment on the current rules rather than counting on a change.
Robert Farrington is the founder of The College Investor and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading voices on student loan debt and saving for college. He holds an MBA from UC San Diego Rady School of Management and has spent over 15 years researching, writing, and advising on student loans, 529 plans, financial aid programs, and saving and investing for young professionals.
Robert has been featured in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NBC News, and Forbes, where he has been a regular personal finance contributor for over a decade. His work combines both professional expertise and personal experience – he successfully navigated his own student loan repayment journey and has helped thousands of readers do the same.
He is committed to making the intersection of personal finance and education transparent and accessible. You can learn more about Robert on the About Page or on his personal site RobertFarrington.com.
